in SCIENCE AND MORALS. 137 



duction of such phenomena for their function), 

 even if the spiritualistic hypothesis had any foun- 

 dation. For nobody hesitates to say that an 

 event A is the cause of an event Z, even if there 

 are as many intermediate terms, known and un- 

 known, in the chain of causation as there are 

 letters between A and Z. The man who pulls 

 the trigger of a loaded pistol placed close to an- 

 other's head certainly is the cause of that other's 

 death, though, in strictness, he " causes " noth- 

 ing but the movement of the finger upon the 

 trigger. And, in like manner, the molecular 

 change which is brought about in a certain por- 

 tion of the cerebral substance by the stimula- 

 tion of a remote part of the body would be prop- 

 erly said to be the cause of the consequent feel- 

 ing, whatever unknown terms were interposed 

 between the physical agent and the actual psychi- 

 cal product. Therefore, unless Materialism has 

 the monopoly of the right use of language, I see 

 nothing materialistic in the phraseology which I 

 have employed. 



The only remaining justification which Mr. 

 Lilly offers for dubbing me a Materialist, malgre 

 moi, arises out of a passage which he quotes, in 

 which I say that the progress of science means the 

 extension of the province of what we call matter 

 and force, and the concomitant gradual banish- 

 ment from all regions of human thought of what 

 we call spirit and spontaneity. I hold that opin- 



